The Spider's Web (29 page)

He thought of what Roseanne had told him, that she couldn’t remember what she might have said at Berta’s or Ella’s. She could have mentioned the barn when she was at Ella’s, and Jerry Adams could have heard her and figured out where the two members of his burglary ring were hiding. It was Roseanne who could connect him to the barn.

But Roseanne didn’t know any of it. She would trust Jerry Adams. She could let him in.

 

 

JERRY ADAMS MOVED into the living room, caught the edge of the door with his boot, and slammed it behind him. “Shut up,” he said, swiveling toward Aunt Martha. Then he looked at Roseanne. “You can’t hide from me, no more than your friends could hide.”

Roseanne could feel her tongue moving, the muscles in her throat twitching. Words bunched in her head, but no sound came. She swallowed hard and forced herself to lift her eyes from the gun. “What do you want?” she managed.

“I want what belongs to me,” he said.

Aunt Martha let out a high-pitched scream, as if she had been struck by a hot poker.

“Shut up, you crazy old woman.” Adams pointed the pistol at her, and for a moment, Roseanne thought Aunt Martha would drop to the floor. Instead she pressed both fists against her mouth. Her eyes had gone round with a mixture of fear and disbelief.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Roseanne said, but she was beginning to understand, little pieces fitting themselves together in her head, a picture taking shape. The man was a killer. He had killed Hawk and Lookingglass, and she . . .

She felt sick to her stomach, the taste of acid in her mouth. Oh God, she was the one who had told Jerry Adams about the barn.

“I want the stuff that belongs to me,” Adams said again, turning the gun on her. “You’re gonna tell me where your friends stashed it.”

“They weren’t my friends.”

“Don’t lie to me!” he shouted, and Aunt Martha let out another squealing noise, muffled by her fists. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can outsmart me. You showed up at Berta’s party with Dwayne and Lionel after they killed Ned. I knew what they were up to the minute I heard they shot him. They found out he was holding out on them, stashing stuff for himself. Ned was like that, eager to get money for a ranch. Held out on all of us, and them two got wise. I figure Ned told ’em where he hid the stuff just before they shot him. That way, all the stuff was theirs, and they were dumb enough to think I’d never figure it out. Kept it in the barn for a while, then moved it someplace else. Now you’re gonna tell me, Roseanne, where did they move it?”

“You killed them,” Roseanne said. The words had burst out on their own. Acid burned in her throat. Aunt Martha was whimpering, slump-shouldered, fists still pressed into her mouth. “You went to the barn and shot them.”

“Where did they hide the stuff?” he said, his voice steady, the pistol an extension of his hand. “It won’t do you any good.” He gave a little laugh. “Where you gonna sell TVs and DVD players and cameras and jewelry? That’s the same mistake Dwayne and Lionel made. What did they know about unloading that stuff? Ned, now, he was different. Smart, Ned was. He could figure it out. I almost admired him, challenging me that way, pretending he didn’t want anything more to do with the burglary ring, saying he was gonna dance at the Sun Dance, become a good Arapaho, when all the time he was muscling me out. My buyers in Denver called me. They told me they got shorted. Dwayne and Lionel thought they could do the same. After all I did for them stupid cowpokes.” He started shaking his head, a look of bemused grievance moving through his expression. “Hired ’em on the ranch, taught ’em everything they knew about ranching, gave ’em a chance to make some real money out of the big houses outside Lander and up in Jackson Hole, taking stuff people don’t even remember they got. All they had to do was what I said. I handled the rest of it.”

“I swear to you,” Roseanne said, “I don’t know anything. I wasn’t even with Ned anymore. He was with that white girl.”

“Don’t lie!” he shouted. “You were with him for a long time. He told me he was trying to break up with that white girl. He never told her about the business. You’re the only one that knew.”

Roseanne stared at the man; she couldn’t take her eyes away. He was going to shoot them both, and he would get away with it, just like he’d gotten away with killing Dwayne and Lionel. No one knew he was the leader of the burglary ring. An idea started to form in her mind, as flimsy as air. She struggled to grab hold of it, force it to make sense. She could pretend to take him to a hiding place, and then what? When there was nothing there, no TVs and cameras and jewels, he would shoot her. But she could gain time; there was always the chance that someone . . .

Aunt Martha let out a wild, piercing scream and darted for the door, like a bobcat desperate to get out of a trap, and in that instant, as Jerry Adams swung around, grabbed her and flung her against the wall, Roseanne darted for the kitchen. She found herself crouched on the far side of the table, unaware of how she had gotten there or how the Colt came to be in her hands, steadied on top of the hard wooden seat of the chair, pointed toward the doorway. Her heart pounded in her ears. Aunt Martha was no longer wailing, and for an instant the quiet was like the quiet in a dark cave.

“Bitch!” Adams shouted. He was still in the living room, but she could hear him moving toward the doorway, coming closer. She gripped the pistol hard, her finger on the trigger. Then he filled up the doorway, waving the black gun into the kitchen.

 

 

THE SOUND OF a gunshot splintered the air as Father John drove over the dirt yard. He braked hard behind the dark truck and the pickup and got out. His heart was hammering. He was too late. Too late. And inside was a man with a gun.

He crouched down alongside the front of the house and ran for the corner. Then he made his way down the side, trying to see through the curtains in the windows. In the back, he worked toward the door and peered past the half-drawn shade into the kitchen. It took a moment before his eyes adjusted to the dim light inside and he could see beyond his own fear and dread. A man lay on his back in the doorway between the kitchen and the front of the house, a dark puddle of blood growing on his light-colored shirt. In the center of the kitchen, behind a kitchen chair, down on one knee, was Roseanne, both hands extended onto the chair seat, gripping a pistol.

He moved to the side of the door and knocked. “It’s Father John,” he called. He could hear the tightness in his voice. Dear Lord, the girl would be in shock. She could swing around and pull the trigger. “It’s Father John,” he said again. “Put the gun down, Roseanne. No one is going to hurt you. You’re okay now.” He waited a moment before he looked through the glass pane. The girl had set the gun on the table and was slumped on the floor. He reached for the knob, stepped into the kitchen. Crouching down beside her, he set a hand on her shoulder. He could feel the tremors coming from somewhere deep inside. “You’re okay,” he said again.

“IT’S OVER NOW.” Elena stood guard in front of the stove, the coffeepot hoisted in one hand.

Father John pushed his mug across the table. The bishop had said Mass this morning and eaten breakfast before Father John had gotten downstairs. “I’ll be praying for all of them,” he’d told Father John last night. The old man had already gone to the office.

Father John watched the stream of black liquid spill out of the glass container. The coffee was hot, pungent and strong, the way he needed coffee this morning. He felt as if he hadn’t slept at all, although he suspected he had probably dozed off in between getting up and looking out the window at the moonlight flooding the mission grounds and the wide strip of the Milky Way arching across the black sky. A noise had pulled him from bed, but there hadn’t been anything unusual outside. He had crawled back into bed, tossed about in the tangle of sheets, and dozed, most likely. Then the noise had sounded again.

He had imagined it, he thought now. He must have been dreaming, a whole night of disjointed dreams that he couldn’t remember.

“Outsiders, all of them.” Glass clanked against plastic as Elena set the coffee pot in place. “That white man, Adams. Who invited him here, anyway? Them two Arapahos from Oklahoma. Why didn’t they just stay home?”

Father John stirred some milk into the coffee and took a long sip. He waited for her to mention the white girl, but she seemed to have reached the end of her list of outsiders.

“Would’ve saved all of us trouble,” she said. “Saved themselves, too. Now they’re all dead, and we gotta go on and try to remember Ned the way he used to be, before he got mixed up with that crowd.”

“It was the way he wanted to be again,” Father John said. He finished the coffee, his thoughts on Ned. “Talk to me,” he had said the last time Ned came to the mission, but Ned had turned away, and Father John knew that he would always carry that picture of Ned turning away and would always regret not having tried harder.

He finished the coffee, got to his feet and winked at Elena. A five-star breakfast, he told her. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. Walks-On was already at the front door as Father John walked down the hall, and he wondered how long the dog had been waiting. They went outside together. The morning air was already hot, filled with the smells of sage and moist grasses and wild roses. By the time he got to Circle Drive, Walks-On had found the Frisbee, trotted over and dropped it in front of him. Father John sent it sailing back across the field.

He watched the dog bound after the red disc, nose it out of a clump of tall grass, and head back. He tossed the Frisbee again, sending it farther this time. He tried to shake the uneasy feeling that had clamped itself onto him and refused to let go. “Come on, buddy,” he called, as if the sound of his own voice, might push the feeling away. Then he hurried along the drive toward the administration building. The sky was a perfect blue, unmarred by any disturbance, and yet something was off. Two days ago he had found Elena mopping the linoleum in the guesthouse, the windows and doors thrown open. “Getting rid of the whiskey smell,” she said, and he had taken her at her word, but now he wondered what other disquieting thing she had been trying to dispel.

The odd sense of unease seemed to back off a bit in the familiarity of the old building, the sun dancing on the stucco walls and the photos of past Jesuits lining the corridor. He could hear the tapping noise of computer keys, and he headed for the rear office.

He stopped in the doorway and waited. “Preparing Sunday’s homily,” the bishop said, looking up. “I intend to speak on the power of forgiveness, the way in which forgiveness frees us, while the lack of forgiveness holds us in bondage. Will that meet with your approval?” He motioned Father John toward the folding chair by the window.

“Whatever you wish to say would meet with my approval,” Father John said. He was grateful the old man was here. He had so much experience; he understood so much.

“How is the girl?” the bishop said.

For an instant, Father John thought he was referring to Marcy Morrison. Then he realized he was inquiring about Roseanne.

“She’s pretty shaken,” he said.

“As well she should be. It means she’s human,” he said. His voice had gone quiet and reflective, and Father John wondered what the old man was looking back upon. “It is unnatural to kill another human being,” the bishop said, “even when that person intends to kill you. It remains a haunting experience. I hope that in time, she will learn to forgive herself for what circumstances had forced her to do.”

“She and her aunt have gone to Denver to stay with relatives for a while. It wouldn’t surprise me if they decided to stay and make a new start.”

“Good. Good.” Sunlight shimmered in the old man’s white hair. “It will call her back to herself, being with her own family.”

“She’s still grieving for Ned.”

“When would you expect that to end?” The bishop gave a slow, inward smile. “She will eventually grow accustomed to the burden of her loss so that it will feel lighter.” He took a moment, then said, “Unable to sleep again last night?”

“Thought I heard noises,” Father John said. “It wasn’t anything.”

“You’re thinking about her?”

Father John tried to keep his expression still. How much had the old man read in his mind, seen in his heart? He had been so careful. He had walled off the truth, kept it from everyone, even himself, most of the time.

“I’m not referring to
her,
” the bishop said, “although she has reminded me of my friend in India. I still think of her. It was always platonic.” He waved a hand between them, and Father John wondered if there was a hint of regret in the wave. “I pray for her every day, and I thank God for the time she was part of my life. Love is always a blessing, you know.”

Father John kept his eyes on the bishop’s for a moment, then looked away. He had an image of the years stretching ahead, like the calendar pages flipping in old movies, and every day he would pray for Vicky, wonder how she was, where she was, and he, an old man, sitting in an office somewhere, would tell some young priest that love was always a blessing. Not mentioning the pain.

“I haven’t heard anything about Marcy Morrison,” Father John said, carrying on as if they hadn’t opened the cover of a book and glimpsed the meaning of the story inside. “I can’t shake the feeling she’s still around,” he went on, struck by the illogical path he had headed down. It was the red pickup he had expected to see last night, curving around Circle Drive, heading toward the guesthouse. “People here still blame her somehow,” he went on. “They think she brought trouble to the rez.”

The bishop waited a moment before he said, “What do you think?”

“There’s no evidence to tie her to Ned’s murder.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“I’m not sure what to think,” Father John said. “She was a chameleon. A different person at different times, a very good actress.”